Fears Property Market Will Force Tv No-show

[bearbullfence]

If anyone in the area is going can you get an autograph for housepricecrash.co.uk. Also by turning up you may double the numbers. "Property Guru" Kristian Digby didn't do his research. I was Stock Market Guru until a certain day in March 2000.

If you are in the audience why not put it rediculously low bids, or whisper how overpriced it is to the other audience members, or say there are other houses better than these for cheaper elsewhere?

Ahh, ffs, people bumping old threads. Still would have been funny if people in the audience chased each other's price down

Edited July 4, 2007 by bearbullfence

[Incredulous]

time of the month ?

No, but thank you so much for asking.

[tahoma]

No, but thank you so much for asking.

I wasn't being sarky. It's an appalling piece of overpriced tat. Hence, no interest despite the magic of television being involved.

I've learned my lesson though - next time I reply to one of your posts I'll wring my cap and look at the floor.

[Steamerpoint]

Came across this post via google and decided to log in and respond to complete the thread.

First of all, I would just like to say hi. I am the unfortunate Estate Agent called "Chris Taylor" which this article was about and that is a rather bad photo of me by the way! lol.

This program has now been shown twice on TV so most people know the outcome already. Around 10 buyers turned up, none of them actors by the way, and an offer of £138,000 offered, which on camera the vendor rejected because it was an offers over £139,995.

The cameras went later that day and over the following week, the buyer came back with an offer of £140,000, which the vendor accepted. The sale progressed to survey and it became apparent that there were two problems with the property. A minor damp problem where part of a footpath was bridging the DPC (Easily rectified) and a gas boiler that was on its last legs. The buyer re-negotiated the price down and it went through at £138,500. See attachment.

We previously used the Open House format before the program, this is how the BBC spotted us in the first place and we still use this method of selling today with our last Open House only last weekend, which resulted in a sale.

It is a great way of getting the prices down. Often vendors won't drop their prices for fear that someone will make them an offer much lower than the new, lower asking price. The Open House day allows us to get the price down really low and then use the "Offers In Excess Of:" part, asking buyers to offer above this new lower price. If a property fails to sell still, we convince them to leave the price at the same level and remove the "Offers In Excess Of" bit.

As for making the house look nice before the open house day, this is important. You wouldn't sell you car without giving it a quick wash first would you? Of course not, so why should selling your house be any different. Tidy it up and give it a lick of paint if it needs it.

I was right to raise my concerns to the Evening Telegraph about a no show of buyers on the day. I was genuinely worried at the lack of interest before hand, but the turn out was fine, well by today’s standards anyway when more than 5 buyers turning up is considered good.

As to what happened next. Well as we all know, the credit crunch and lack of available credit killed the market once and for all and it wasn't the HIPs or interest rates after all. As for my use of the word "Depression", well I think I was pretty spot on don't you think!

How are we getting on now?

Well we are still here, still trading and haven't had to lay off any staff, so I guess I can say we are still doing okay, but we are only selling around half the number of properties we were a year ago.

Half of the estate agents in and around Peterborough have since closed so the remaining housing stock has been shared out among those that have survived. Having more properties increases the chances of selling something and gone are the days of cheap 0.5% fees, so for the properties we do sell, we can keep the same amount of money coming in.

Repossessions are obviously up and as the lenders want their money back quick, they are slashing the asking prices and this keeps us in business.

Estate agents still open now need to get used to operating in a much tougher market because it looks like it is going to stay this way for a while now. Hopefully the lenders have learned their lessons about giving cheap loans out to people who don't deserve them, which in turn should stop house prices from going mad again. Unfortunately a recession looks like many people will have more things to worry about than raising a mortgage. It is the first time buyers I feel sorry for. Many of them were priced out of the housing market for years and many waited patiently for the bubble to burst so that they get onto it. Now of course it has burst, they can't simply go out and get a mortgage unless they are in a good job and have plenty of savings, so still can't get on the ladder despite lower house prices.

Many people who have bought or re-mortgaged their homes over the last two or three years are finding that they have little or no equity remaining in their homes so they are unable to move because they need equity to form a deposit on their next purchase. They are therefore deciding to take their homes off the market reducing the amount of properties for sale. This is starting to have a knock on effect on prices. Last month a buyer looking for a bungalow in North Peterborough tried to buy two linked detached 2-bed bungalows with a view of knocking them together to make one larger 4-bed, but in the end it worked out cheaper to buy the last remaining 4-bed detached bungalow on the market for close to the asking price! The shortage of supply can work in the vendor’s interest sometimes.

Anything really unique is holding it's value, but in less good areas where there are loads of houses on the market, prices have crashed. Well in my humble opinion anyway. Great site by the way.

Cheers Chris.

[Robot Piston]

Chris. Great reply and thanks for posting it!...

Oh, almost forgot. All estate agents are d i c k h e a d e d parasites who serve no useful purpose whatsoever.

Edited November 4, 2008 by bearballs

[Steamerpoint]

Chris. Great reply and thanks for posting it!...

Oh, almost forgot. All estate agents are d i c k h e a d e d parasites who serve no useful purpose whatsoever.

Cheers and in the words of Jeremy Clarkson "All truck drivers are prostitute murderers" too.

It's great to generalise isn't it.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KwruhN5CWjw

Edited November 4, 2008 by Steamerpoint

[Robert Federer]

Came across this post via google and decided to log in and respond to complete the thread.

First of all, I would just like to say hi. I am the unfortunate Estate Agent called "Chris Taylor" which this article was about and that is a rather bad photo of me by the way! lol.

This program has now been shown twice on TV so most people know the outcome already. Around 10 buyers turned up, none of them actors by the way, and an offer of £138,000 offered, which on camera the vendor rejected because it was an offers over £139,995.

The cameras went later that day and over the following week, the buyer came back with an offer of £140,000, which the vendor accepted. The sale progressed to survey and it became apparent that there were two problems with the property. A minor damp problem where part of a footpath was bridging the DPC (Easily rectified) and a gas boiler that was on its last legs. The buyer re-negotiated the price down and it went through at £138,500. See attachment.

We previously used the Open House format before the program, this is how the BBC spotted us in the first place and we still use this method of selling today with our last Open House only last weekend, which resulted in a sale.

It is a great way of getting the prices down. Often vendors won't drop their prices for fear that someone will make them an offer much lower than the new, lower asking price. The Open House day allows us to get the price down really low and then use the "Offers In Excess Of:" part, asking buyers to offer above this new lower price. If a property fails to sell still, we convince them to leave the price at the same level and remove the "Offers In Excess Of" bit.

As for making the house look nice before the open house day, this is important. You wouldn't sell you car without giving it a quick wash first would you? Of course not, so why should selling your house be any different. Tidy it up and give it a lick of paint if it needs it.

I was right to raise my concerns to the Evening Telegraph about a no show of buyers on the day. I was genuinely worried at the lack of interest before hand, but the turn out was fine, well by today’s standards anyway when more than 5 buyers turning up is considered good.

As to what happened next. Well as we all know, the credit crunch and lack of available credit killed the market once and for all and it wasn't the HIPs or interest rates after all. As for my use of the word "Depression", well I think I was pretty spot on don't you think!

How are we getting on now?

Well we are still here, still trading and haven't had to lay off any staff, so I guess I can say we are still doing okay, but we are only selling around half the number of properties we were a year ago.

Half of the estate agents in and around Peterborough have since closed so the remaining housing stock has been shared out among those that have survived. Having more properties increases the chances of selling something and gone are the days of cheap 0.5% fees, so for the properties we do sell, we can keep the same amount of money coming in.

Repossessions are obviously up and as the lenders want their money back quick, they are slashing the asking prices and this keeps us in business.

Estate agents still open now need to get used to operating in a much tougher market because it looks like it is going to stay this way for a while now. Hopefully the lenders have learned their lessons about giving cheap loans out to people who don't deserve them, which in turn should stop house prices from going mad again. Unfortunately a recession looks like many people will have more things to worry about than raising a mortgage. It is the first time buyers I feel sorry for. Many of them were priced out of the housing market for years and many waited patiently for the bubble to burst so that they get onto it. Now of course it has burst, they can't simply go out and get a mortgage unless they are in a good job and have plenty of savings, so still can't get on the ladder despite lower house prices.

Many people who have bought or re-mortgaged their homes over the last two or three years are finding that they have little or no equity remaining in their homes so they are unable to move because they need equity to form a deposit on their next purchase. They are therefore deciding to take their homes off the market reducing the amount of properties for sale. This is starting to have a knock on effect on prices. Last month a buyer looking for a bungalow in North Peterborough tried to buy two linked detached 2-bed bungalows with a view of knocking them together to make one larger 4-bed, but in the end it worked out cheaper to buy the last remaining 4-bed detached bungalow on the market for close to the asking price! The shortage of supply can work in the vendor’s interest sometimes.

Anything really unique is holding it's value, but in less good areas where there are loads of houses on the market, prices have crashed. Well in my humble opinion anyway. Great site by the way.

Cheers Chris.

You sound like an intelligent, sensible chappy and I for one don't take the view that all estate agents are 'scum' etc.

However, I was born and bred in Peterborough and wondered if you remember the early 90s there? My memory is of almost the entire office stock along Broadway having 'to let' signs outside, houses prices falling 20% nominally, seeing local businesses fail and finding it so difficult to get a job I enrolled in University - a major reason for which was to avoid unemployment. I also remember half the estate agents closing down then as well.

I hope for your sake it doesn't get as bad as it did then. Suffice to say I was kacking myself at the thought of another recession after living through that one!

[Macbeth]

Excellent job! I think its great that my license fee is being used by the BBC to ramp up an individual property to foolish sheeple... I am glad my particular piece of criminally enforced broadcast receiver ownership taxation has given you a free advertising piece to get another idiot into negative equity.

Good to see that another similar terrace sold 2 months later than this for just 99k - and the prior terrace to your sale went for £114k right at the PEAK OF THE BUBBLE in Sep 2007.

You managed to wangle 39.5k extra out of some bigger fools. Idiots who only watch property porn on the BBC. Well done.

The power of the media and Z-list "celebrity" in action.

[Steamerpoint]

Excellent job! I think its great that my license fee is being used by the BBC to ramp up an individual property to foolish sheeple... I am glad my particular piece of criminally enforced broadcast receiver ownership taxation has given you a free advertising piece to get another idiot into negative equity.

Good to see that another similar terrace sold 2 months later than this for just 99k - and the prior terrace to your sale went for £114k right at the PEAK OF THE BUBBLE in Sep 2007.

You managed to wangle 39.5k extra out of some bigger fools. Idiots who only watch property porn on the BBC. Well done.

The power of the media and Z-list "celebrity" in action.

Hi, I am not sure you can consider the terrace properties on a like for like basis, as some of them are smaller 2-bed properties, but I do take your point that the person who bought it will now be in negative equity.

As for the free advertising, I think not! You see the BBC broadcast this months after the Open House was over and in fact, we were expected to get a result for the film team, so in the end we shelled out a whole page advert for this property in the local paper to drum up enough business at our expense. This is how the Evening Telegraph got to report the story of my concerns. I mentioned that I needed to increase exposure for this property and before I knew it, they had what I thought was a camera man down to the property while I was there! I thought he was there to get some more shots of the property, but he was there to photo me & the property and catch a story at the same time. My concerns to the camera man were meant to be between him & I and next thing I know, they were in print! Still, that is what I thought anyway and I didn't really care that they printed it.

The BBC didn't even pay for a thing by the way. They sold the idea to the vendor when they asked to film the Open House day, that the property would have a mini make-over! Ha, all they did was tell her what she should do, like paint the Hall and the Kitchen and then came back to film her actually painting it. They never paid a thing towards paint or anything.

Did the Open House benefit us as a company? Er.... well no actually. Even during filming they removed our for-sale board so it wasn't caught on camera and at no time was the company name mentioned. Apparently they are not meant to endorse a company.

What many people here are not aware of is that over the same few weeks, they asked us to do another Open House program with a property in Sunnymead, Werrington. They only made 20 programs around the UK and they used us twice for two properties in Peterborough! Why had we not learnt our lesson first time round I do not know!!!

Sunnymead sold on the day, but after the whole thing was over, we had spent too much of our time focusing on these two properties, we had not given enough time to our other vendors and we felt quite guilty about this. I would never do another Open House program for the BBC. It's just not worth the agro.

It is safe to say that your TV licence fee was safe on these programs, though it must have cost them something to make them! Certainly nothing like the fees they pay Johnathan Ross to make rude phone calls.

Edited November 5, 2008 by Steamerpoint

[Steamerpoint]

You sound like an intelligent, sensible chappy and I for one don't take the view that all estate agents are 'scum' etc.

However, I was born and bred in Peterborough and wondered if you remember the early 90s there? My memory is of almost the entire office stock along Broadway having 'to let' signs outside, houses prices falling 20% nominally, seeing local businesses fail and finding it so difficult to get a job I enrolled in University - a major reason for which was to avoid unemployment. I also remember half the estate agents closing down then as well.

I hope for your sake it doesn't get as bad as it did then. Suffice to say I was kacking myself at the thought of another recession after living through that one!

I do remember those days. I started in agency in 1995. The market had been bad for 5 years by then and didn't pull itself out until 1996/ 1997 so making sales then was very hard.

To those people reading this who hate Estate Agents, I can see where you are coming from to be honest, I hate them too. Most of them are scumbags, really not very nice people at all. When I left the RAF and landed myself a job in WH Brown I asked one of the other negotiators if he could give me any tips! His name is Paul Fairclough and he is still an agent for WH Brown in their Yaxley office! He said this: "Learn to lie and learn to lie convincingly". This is true by the way.

As ex-forces I have got principles and a high degree of self respect and I refused to go down this path. Because I have taken the route of honesty, I am seen in a very different light than other estate agents and I wish to keep things that way.

When people asked me what I did for a living in the 80's and early 90's and I told them I was an airframe engineer in the RAF, most people said, cool and then they offered to buy me a drink, but now when I am asked what I do for a living, I just say "I work in property management" hoping they will think I am in lettings or something and move the subject onto something else. Pretty sad really, but the industry has brought this on itself!

Hopefully most of the cowboys will be out of work soon and as more and more regulation comes into play, the industry will become more respectable, but I guess it will take a while. On the Continent, estate agents are trained to degree level and cannot work in the industry until they have passed their exams. That said, it costs 5 times more to sell you house over there and looking at what they actually do for their money makes many British estate agents look like excellent value for money, though I accept most in this country are still crap.

Anyway, would love to chat more with people here, but it's late and I am really busy over the coming days listing even more houses that will sit there unsold for weeks to come. Appologies if I don't reply to any other posts for a bit.

Oh and I expect to get a few W**ker & T**ser posts here because estate agents are always hated in places like this, but not all estate agents are the same and if estate agents weren't needed by the general public, why are they here?

Cheers Chris

Edited November 5, 2008 by Steamerpoint

[tuggybear]

Thanks Chris, I enjoyed your posts.

Just remember folks, Estate Agents are (real) people to!

[the anti krust]

To those people reading this who hate Estate Agents, I can see where you are coming from to be honest, I hate them too. Most of them are scumbags, really not very nice people at all. When I left the RAF and landed myself a job in WH Brown I asked one of the other negotiators if he could give me any tips! His name is Paul Fairclough and he is still an agent for WH Brown in their Yaxley office! He said this: "Learn to lie and learn to lie convincingly". This is true by the way.

As ex-forces I have got principles and a high degree of self respect and I refused to go down this path. Because I have taken the route of honesty, I am seen in a very different light than other estate agents and I wish to keep things that way.

fookin' ell, wonder if Paul Fairclough reads HPC when all is quiet in the office ?

[Len Fairclough]

fookin' ell, wonder if Paul Fairclough reads HPC when all is quiet in the office ?

No, but his dad does!

[Robot Piston]

I do remember those days. I started in agency in 1995. The market had been bad for 5 years by then and didn't pull itself out until 1996/ 1997 so making sales then was very hard.

To those people reading this who hate Estate Agents, I can see where you are coming from to be honest, I hate them too. Most of them are scumbags, really not very nice people at all. When I left the RAF and landed myself a job in WH Brown I asked one of the other negotiators if he could give me any tips! His name is Paul Fairclough and he is still an agent for WH Brown in their Yaxley office! He said this: "Learn to lie and learn to lie convincingly". This is true by the way.

As ex-forces I have got principles and a high degree of self respect and I refused to go down this path. Because I have taken the route of honesty, I am seen in a very different light than other estate agents and I wish to keep things that way.

When people asked me what I did for a living in the 80's and early 90's and I told them I was an airframe engineer in the RAF, most people said, cool and then they offered to buy me a drink, but now when I am asked what I do for a living, I just say "I work in property management" hoping they will think I am in lettings or something and move the subject onto something else. Pretty sad really, but the industry has brought this on itself!

Hopefully most of the cowboys will be out of work soon and as more and more regulation comes into play, the industry will become more respectable, but I guess it will take a while. On the Continent, estate agents are trained to degree level and cannot work in the industry until they have passed their exams. That said, it costs 5 times more to sell you house over there and looking at what they actually do for their money makes many British estate agents look like excellent value for money, though I accept most in this country are still crap.

Anyway, would love to chat more with people here, but it's late and I am really busy over the coming days listing even more houses that will sit there unsold for weeks to come. Appologies if I don't reply to any other posts for a bit.

Oh and I expect to get a few W**ker & T**ser posts here because estate agents are always hated in places like this, but not all estate agents are the same and if estate agents weren't needed by the general public, why are they here?

Cheers Chris

They aren't needed. Sold my last house on housenetwork.co.uk. They charged me 500 quid.

No oily, unqualified b-sh!tters required. We got 3 round to value the property though. One said put it on for 300K.

I put it on for 350K and accepted 340K a month later. Taking the 'professional' advice of this estate agent would have cost me £40,000. For this they would have charged me £7500!

Beginning to see why people think you are t@ssers? The 'pull a number out of your a r s e' trick is easily spotted the first time you do it. I will never use an estate agent again, even for a valuation.

The internet will make you all redundant.

BTW, you are obviously eloquent and intelligent. WTF are you doing as an EA?

Edited November 5, 2008 by bearballs

[Steamerpoint]

BTW, you are obviously eloquent and intelligent. WTF are you doing as an EA?

Might not be one for much longer if you are right about the internet!

Not worried because if the worsed comes to the worsed, I am trained as a project Manager (Long story, but took a 3-year break from agency to work for Pearl assurance), have my full HGV articulated driving licence and have plenty of engineering qualifications, so should be able to find something else if the sh*t hits the fan.

I do enjoy this job though, You get to meet lots of great people, get to wear a nice suit and drive around in nice cars.

Hours are long though. Most nights we work to 7pm and it's a 7-day week with about 4 or 5-days off a month, so not great if you have kids as I do.

Do we need estate agents? I guess the internet will close all shops too in the same way, but people still like to look and hold the items before they buy them, perhaps later online!!

The internet is great and most people can upload some photos they may have taken with their digital camera bought from Argos, but most people can't produce virtual tours, 3D floorplans etc. Another advantage is someone actually talking to buyers about each property and sell them the merits of each property. For example, "Have you considered this property? you could extend on the bit of land at the side and because it sides onto a footpath, you could add a door and use it as an office, allowing you to work from home" etc.

I think quality agents that charge a fair price for what they do could survive for decades to come, but I take your point about their limited future.

[dances with sheeple]

Came across this post via google and decided to log in and respond to complete the thread.

First of all, I would just like to say hi. I am the unfortunate Estate Agent called "Chris Taylor" which this article was about and that is a rather bad photo of me by the way! lol.

This program has now been shown twice on TV so most people know the outcome already. Around 10 buyers turned up, none of them actors by the way, and an offer of £138,000 offered, which on camera the vendor rejected because it was an offers over £139,995.

The cameras went later that day and over the following week, the buyer came back with an offer of £140,000, which the vendor accepted. The sale progressed to survey and it became apparent that there were two problems with the property. A minor damp problem where part of a footpath was bridging the DPC (Easily rectified) and a gas boiler that was on its last legs. The buyer re-negotiated the price down and it went through at £138,500. See attachment.

We previously used the Open House format before the program, this is how the BBC spotted us in the first place and we still use this method of selling today with our last Open House only last weekend, which resulted in a sale.

It is a great way of getting the prices down. Often vendors won't drop their prices for fear that someone will make them an offer much lower than the new, lower asking price. The Open House day allows us to get the price down really low and then use the "Offers In Excess Of:" part, asking buyers to offer above this new lower price. If a property fails to sell still, we convince them to leave the price at the same level and remove the "Offers In Excess Of" bit.

As for making the house look nice before the open house day, this is important. You wouldn't sell you car without giving it a quick wash first would you? Of course not, so why should selling your house be any different. Tidy it up and give it a lick of paint if it needs it.

I was right to raise my concerns to the Evening Telegraph about a no show of buyers on the day. I was genuinely worried at the lack of interest before hand, but the turn out was fine, well by today’s standards anyway when more than 5 buyers turning up is considered good.

As to what happened next. Well as we all know, the credit crunch and lack of available credit killed the market once and for all and it wasn't the HIPs or interest rates after all. As for my use of the word "Depression", well I think I was pretty spot on don't you think!

How are we getting on now?

Well we are still here, still trading and haven't had to lay off any staff, so I guess I can say we are still doing okay, but we are only selling around half the number of properties we were a year ago.

Half of the estate agents in and around Peterborough have since closed so the remaining housing stock has been shared out among those that have survived. Having more properties increases the chances of selling something and gone are the days of cheap 0.5% fees, so for the properties we do sell, we can keep the same amount of money coming in.

Repossessions are obviously up and as the lenders want their money back quick, they are slashing the asking prices and this keeps us in business.

Estate agents still open now need to get used to operating in a much tougher market because it looks like it is going to stay this way for a while now. Hopefully the lenders have learned their lessons about giving cheap loans out to people who don't deserve them, which in turn should stop house prices from going mad again. Unfortunately a recession looks like many people will have more things to worry about than raising a mortgage. It is the first time buyers I feel sorry for. Many of them were priced out of the housing market for years and many waited patiently for the bubble to burst so that they get onto it. Now of course it has burst, they can't simply go out and get a mortgage unless they are in a good job and have plenty of savings, so still can't get on the ladder despite lower house prices.

Many people who have bought or re-mortgaged their homes over the last two or three years are finding that they have little or no equity remaining in their homes so they are unable to move because they need equity to form a deposit on their next purchase. They are therefore deciding to take their homes off the market reducing the amount of properties for sale. This is starting to have a knock on effect on prices. Last month a buyer looking for a bungalow in North Peterborough tried to buy two linked detached 2-bed bungalows with a view of knocking them together to make one larger 4-bed, but in the end it worked out cheaper to buy the last remaining 4-bed detached bungalow on the market for close to the asking price! The shortage of supply can work in the vendor’s interest sometimes.

Anything really unique is holding it's value, but in less good areas where there are loads of houses on the market, prices have crashed. Well in my humble opinion anyway. Great site by the way.

Cheers Chris.

The good news for them is that the average deposit required now will be enough to buy the average house outright in a couple of years

So good news all round, except for Estate Agents and "Homeowners'

[oscar84]

I was curious about this fine upstanding estate agent Chris Taylor. He says he hasn't laid of any staff yet. I'm wondering how many potential staff he has to lay off because he comes across to me as a one man band, unless he sacks the wife obviously. Maybe a bit economical with the truth in this department?